2014 Competition Finalists

Team Name: 4618- CN Robotics

Robot FunctionTo compete in the First Robotics CompetitionGroup MembersMartin Skot, Pavle Arinzina, Christian Davis, Steven Chupul, Philip PatemanDescription of RobotTeam 4618’s robot Dusty was designed and built to play in the 2014 FIRST Robotics Competition game Arial Assist.In order to compete, teams had to manufacture and compete with a robot that can pick up, pass and launch a large exercise ball several feet into the air. We accomplish this by using 2 large motors and a chain to rotate a catapult arm, resulting in an indefinite shot variation, for both short and long range. We intake balls through the back of the robot using 2 motors with locking transmissions to not hold the ball but secure it into place during high speed runs with the ball. The difficulty of the competition comes from the extremely strict robot rules found in the game manual, similar to auto racing and engineering projects there are tight rules regarding size, weight, motors, and electrical, and by adhering to these rules teams are still able to build thousands of unique robots.

Team Name: ARMADA

Robot FunctionAutonomous, Intelligent and Cooperative RobotGroup MembersIan Berlot-AttwellDescription of Robot The robots are essentially small mobile computers with an array of sensors, communication and navigation hardware. Mobility is achieved with wheels or tracks for more rugged terrain. They operate in “swarm” mode; this is, cooperating with each other to achieve maximum efficiency. An added advantage of such a behavior is that the number of robots can be increased arbitrarily as required and therefore they can cover any surface size and adapt automatically to these new conditions. I called my robotic swarm “Armada” for Automated Robotic Monitoring and Detection Autobot. They can carry any type of available sensor (IR, radiation, chemical vapor, sound, etc.) and they know their location by either GPS or Inertial Guidance. They can be used from small areas (a house) to large areas (an airport or nuclear plant). They can perform safety or identification monitoring and either sound an alarm or communicate with a central system for reporting purposes. Their basic software is designed to cope with any surface configuration without the need for a map. They can transmit navigation information to other members, and hence automatically design a highly effective patrol pattern.

Team Name: BeaverworX

Robot FunctionAerial Assist Competition RobotGroup MembersTom Vuong, Reli Desosa, Mayur Saxena, Billy ParmenterDescription of RobotThe robot, Polar Vortex, is a competitive game playing robot designed for the 2014 FIRST competition. FIRST imposes limits on the size and shape of the robots. Polar Vortex is 44” in its greatest diameter and 42” tall. “AERIAL ASSIST is played by two competing Alliances of three robots each on a flat 25’ x 54’foot field, straddled by a truss suspended just over five feet above the floor. The objective is to score as many balls in goals as possible during a two (2)-minute and 30-second match. The more Alliances score their ball in their goals, and the more they work together to do it, the more points their Alliance receives.” (US FIRST) To achieve this Polar Vortex is capable of a great deal of control of the ball. The ball can be retrieved from the ground or a teammate, ejected, or thrown at a variety of targets. Polar Vortex is also very capable of motion, being specifically designed for maneuverability. Ball pickup and ejection is achieved using a roller assembly at the end of an arm. The arm is placed over the ball and then pulls it onto a spring-loaded launcher in the centre of the robot. The arm and roller can eject the ball, or be moved out of the way to allow it to be launched.

Team Name: Command Center

Robot FunctionMobile Robotic ArmGroup MembersMohammad Hasan, Tazook BukhariDescription of RobotThe robotic arm is mounted on a four wheel, all purpose, individually powered tires, high torque vehicle. The control station was built with the intention of supplying easy access and control. Therefore, be having a mobile control station enables convenient control of the robotic arm and vehicle. For the design of the robotic arm, we wanted to simulate a human arm by which we used several bearing to resemble human joints, the robotic grip to resemble a cuffed human hand. In convenience, the design behind the control system was to promote and stimulate natural human movements. For the design of the robotic car, we wanted to ensure that the structure supported heavy weights picked up and still maintain a decent speed. Also, the body holds a camera that opts for a 120 degrees range in the horizontal and 90 degrees in the vertical live view.

Team Name: GHGT

Robot FunctionLight PaintingGroup MembersAbdu Khodr, Ash Liu, Behzad Akbari, Colin Gagich, Dominik Kaukinen, Ethan D’Mello, Mbako Zubair, Michelle Wu, Vinay Yuvashankar, Wales Zhou, William Cameron, William Zhang, Ziyang LuDescription of RobotThe purpose of the robot designed by the GHGT Robotics Team is to produce a light painting that is based on a user’s input into a connected drawing application. The robot is constructed from a drone aircraft and utilizes a LED light source to produce the drawing and an Arduino controller coupled to a WiFi Shield to receive flight instructions.The user of the robot draws a picture using an application designed for a smartphone or tablet. This application converts the drawing into a grid of two-dimensional position coordinates and passes this information to a computer program. The computer program calculates the necessary flight path for the robot and communicates these instructions to the Arduino controller over WiFi. The robot completes this calculated flight path and the light painting is recorded by a long exposure camera. A secondary camera is also used to track the current position of the LED light source which allows for a live feedback system to be implemented into the flight calculation. This ensures that the robot’s flight path instructions are corrected against variations in the surrounding air flow conditions.

Team Name: Humberview Alpha Dogs

Robot FunctionBall ManipulationGroup MembersBrendon Fallon, Jeremy Sant, Alicia Matis, Cole Cyr, Stefan Pleava, Brian McCrindle, Matthew Reynolds, Harry HautotDescription of RobotThe 2014 FIRST Aerial Assist challenge involves the scoring of a 2 foot diameter exercise ball in both ground goals and 7 foot high goals. Our robot was built for this challenge and is able to move by itself and manipulate, through a cycle of control, the 2 foot diameter exercise ball in 3D space with a high degree of accuracy. The robot achieves this through 3 stages which are:

In-taking the ball into the robot through a rotating shaft with wheels

Holding the ball in a loading area while moving

Out-taking the ball either by shooting through a wheeled shooter or through the rotating shaft

Through the use of a sensor, Alph is able to eject the ball through the wheeled shooter with variable rotational speed to change the height and distance of the shot. These speeds can be saved and key bound to the operations controller for repetitive distance shooting or varied manually by the operator. The robot is also able to traverse space and fire the ball autonomously with the use of a gyroscope and ultrasonic distance sensor, which can be used to move the robot to a specific distance from a wall. The robot is controlled through the use of two joystick controllers which allow for separation of movement and operation controls for ease of task execution. The controllers are hooked up to a driver’s laptop which connects to the robot via an onboard router.

Team Name: Kinetic Knights

Robot FunctionBall Collector and LauncherGroup MembersChris Pierce, Gregory Dadson, Mathew Strader, Bradley Reid, Nikhil Deshpande, Aaron Gordon, Jed Gonzales, Virat TrapathiDescription of Robot Our robot “Moose” has three main design features. The ball launching catapult, the fast and effective intake, and the powerful and robust drive train. ​The catapult is powered by two rear suspension springs of a snowmobile and retracted by a miniCIM motor and a linkage system that we call the “Choo-Choo”. The ball is cradled by two hockey stick blades. The intake consists of two rollers that stick out of the back of the robot to pick the ball up off of the ground. These rollers then push the ball into small fast spinning wheels which quickly put the ball into position and hold it there. The drive train is powered by a total of four CIM motors. It has two gears, a high and a low. The high gear allows the robot to go about 15 ft/sec and the low gear allows it to go about 5 ft/sec. The drive train has six 8in pneumatic wheels, this gives the robot maximum traction and pushing power. Our robot also has many sensors and various electronics to make it function well.

Team Name: Robotics for Space Exploration (RSX)

Robot FunctionOrigin – Martian Exploration RoverGroup MembersKarim Koreitem, Rahul Goel, Kramay Patel, Askar Kazbekov, Aakash Goel, Philip Lee, Masha Itkina, Kiah Bransch, He He, Bryan Tarras, Kevin Olsen, Ekansh SharmaDescription of RobotOrigin is a tele-operated rover designed for planetary exploration – specifically, Mars. It is controlled from a distant base station, and is equipped with various mechanical components, sensors,and electronics. It is designed to rove and complete a variety of tasks in challenging environments where human involvement is unsafe or impossible.